RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Strength of species interactions determines biodiversity and stability in microbial communities
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 671008
DO 10.1101/671008
A1 Christoph Ratzke
A1 Julien Barrere
A1 Jeff Gore
YR 2019
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/06/13/671008.abstract
AB Organisms – especially microbes – tend to live in complex communities. While some of these ecosystems are very bio-diverse, others aren’t1–3, and while some are very stable over time others undergo strong temporal fluctuations4,5. Despite a long history of research and a plethora of data it is not fully understood what sets biodiversity and stability of ecosystems6,7. Theory as well as experiments suggest a connection between species interaction, biodiversity, and stability of ecosystems8–13, where an increase of ecosystem stability with biodiversity could be observed in several cases7,9,14. However, what causes these connections remains unclear. Here we show in microbial ecosystems in the lab that the concentrations of available nutrients can set the strength of interactions between bacteria. At high nutrient concentrations, extensive microbial growth leads to strong chemical modifications of the environment, causing more negative interactions between species. These stronger interactions exclude more species from the community – resulting in a loss of biodiversity. At the same time, these stronger interactions also decrease the stability of the microbial communities, providing a mechanistic link between species interaction, biodiversity and stability.